Introduction

This chapter looks at the extent and impact of fathers’ violence on children and children's own perspectives on their violent fathers. The first section summarises some of the key findings from the research on the varying ways children are harmed through this violence and its interconnections with abusive parental practice. The second section focuses on research on children's own views of living with paternal domestic violence and their feelings towards these fathers. The importance of children's perspectives on their own lives has been highlighted in sociological studies of childhood and indicates that they are active participants in socialisation processes rather than merely passive objects (James and Prout, 1990; Qvortrup et al, 1994). Yet children's perceptions of domestic violence from fathers and their feelings and views have frequently been marginalised and ignored in policy and practice responses (McGee, 2000; Mullender et al, 2002). In this regard even very young children are usually competent to describe their experiences either verbally or through visual representation, as seen in the drawing on page 26.

The extent of fathers’ violence

A problem with assessing the prevalence of fathers’ violence and its impact on children is that research in this area has not usually asked questions about perpetrators’ parental relationships and government policy has defined fathers as non-abusers (Scourfield and Drakeford, 2002; DCSF, 2010). As seen in the introduction, a gender-neutral approach to defining domestic violence has contributed to this invisibility, alongside professional assumptions that violence between parents is often mutual (Hester et al, 2007). Nevertheless, some data is available, with the Department of Health (DH, 2002) estimating that nearly a million children are affected by fathers’ violence towards women. This estimate is supported by victim information in British Crime Survey data where half of the 10 per cent of women in the general population who on average experience domestic violence each year are known to have children (Mirrlees-Black, 1999). It is also known that the presence of children is associated with double the risk of domestic violence towards women (Walby and Allen, 2004). Other information has come from the only UK retrospective study to date that has looked at the prevalence of child maltreatment with nearly 3,000 young adults (Cawson et al, 2000). While taking a gender-neutral approach, this study found that a quarter had witnessed physical violence towards a parent at least once and a fifth were really afraid of their fathers.